I’m trying to talk a bunch of friends into goint to see RHPS in costume so my Eddy getup complete with lobotomy scar might do the trick. If we give out candy I might make a custom mix CD with most of Alan Parsons Project Tales of Mystery and Imagination:EAP
56 days, 7 hours and 7 minutes according to my countdown screensaver, Res 
I’ve seen the Michael’s Crafts village and I love the animation - the fountain has real water and fog! To this self-proclaimed “Halloweenie” it is at least a month-long seasonal celebration, but I’m an anomaly.
Have any dopers decided to use some of the ideas in this thread?
On preview - Padeye, how much candy do you usually give out?
Urrgh. Must… start… beaded… top. As soon as I get my wedding dress hemmed, which i am definitely doing this weekend.
I’d say my costume is roughly half finished.
I’ve got to finish filing the shoulder pieces and attach them to the chest plate.
Clean the lucite rod, wrap one end in electrical tape, attach the pill bottle, and wire up the blinker LED's in the base.
I need more duct tape and Goop[sub]tm[/sub] to finish the bracers.
I've gotta test the greaves to see if the Goop will hold when they flex.
Finish filing the lucite shield pieces and glue them.
And I have to put the hawk emblem on the cuirass and shield.
If I wasn’t reusing the cuirass I made last year, I’d be totally behind schedule.
My newest batch of live, rabid monkeys ought to scare the kiddies.
I bought a really cool mask in Venice when the wife and I were in Yurp this past summer. I think I’ve decided what to wear with it.
I’m looking forward to seeing Lucretia in her promised Halloween getup. 
Attention everyone; Halloween 2002, which was scheduled for October 31, has been cancelled due to me misplacing my Gumby costume. Sorry for the bad news.
I’ve gotten by for several (noncontiguous) Hallowe’ens with a variant of the Fake Head costume.
Once when I was thirteen, I got a wig’s head, put a creepy-old-man mask on top of it, a felt hat on top of that, and the whole shebang on top of my real head. I wore an oversized trenchcoat covering my real head, so that when my brother (dressed as a pirate) and I went trick-or-treating, the kindly old women just thought I was some tall kid wearing a cheapo mask.
That is, they thought that until my little brother pulled out his sword and decapitated me. I still remember some of the screams we got…
Another year, when i was in college, I did almost the same costume, except that I put the head on a stick and covered the stick with a sweater. I’d walk past people and nod the head at them, and they’d nod back, oblivious. Then, as I walked past them, I’d slowly turn the head 180 degrees so that it would continue to watch them as I walked on. A couple of fellow students, probably tripping on mushrooms, ran their asses away when they saw me do that.
Last year, I bought two cheap masks and a big coat and made myself into an ettin (two-headed giant). A crude club and a shield with skull-and-crossbones design completed the costume. I drank my booze through a straw, making sure to give each head equal drinking time, and judged success by the number of people I could get to talk to the fake head.
I’m not sure what I’ll do this year; it may be time to retire the fake-head gag, unless I can think of something new to do with it.
Daniel
I am a hopeless Halloween addict. I’m the guy on the street that always plans something scary and new for the kiddies. I give out the best candy and always play tricks to boot. My kids hate me because I embarass them.
I’ve had much success in the last few years. Last year I pulled the old “sitting on the porch very still to scare people” trick with a minor variation. I wasn’t sitting on the porch, I was hiding in the bushes next to the door. One poor kid turned around and ran smack into the tree in our front yard. Another dropped his candy and never came back for it. Still another tried to kick me in the nuts before running. Thankfully she missed.
Three years ago I scared a kid so badly that he just stopped where he stood and peed in his pants. Funny that he was an older kid who was just escoting the little kids around.
I am a monster and the plan for this year is better than ever, especially since I’m in a totally new neighborhood, with new targets to terrorize.
Last year I went as a pimp circa 1975. It was SO much fun shopping in vintage stores for the clothes. I try not to repeat my costumes from year to year but I think I’m going to be a pimp again.
Any volunteers to be one of my 'ho’s?
Mullinator - can you send me a couple, please?!
Bedhead - you’ll just have to go as Pokey :rolleyes:
and last, but not least, welby1 - remember not to grab the kiddos! I had to remind my husband last year that we don’t want a lawsuit. But isn’t it fun to scare the living crap out of them?
Daniel, I am absolutely in awe of this. It sounds like the sort of thing Harold in Harold and Maude would have pulled, if he’d had friends. Wow.
I will do beaded applique, but I refuse to dance with a sword on my head.
I will finish hemming the damn dress, too. At least no one else has asked for costumes this year.
Weeeeehehehehe!
My big sheet of leather came in the mail today. I can finally start making Boba Fett’s costume.
Side, humorous note: I started the Atkins diet a few weeks ago and I’ve lost 25 lbs. and several inches of my physique. The plus side is that I look and feel great. The downside is that my costume was made according to my old dimensions, so now certain parts of it are loose. :smack:
My true desire is to be in Key West at Halloween. But absent that, Seattle is well equipped:
Archie McPhee’s in Ballard, a virtual home of the camp:
and Costume & Display (they REALLY should have a dedicated Halloween page too):
http://www.displaycostume.com/tour/costumedept.shtml
Best Halloween stunt: a neighbor who put a scarecrow on the porch with a light jack o’lantern. The scarecrow was in fact the neighbor, well made up. When the scarecrow would move, the kids would freak out.
2nd best: swooping ghost on a pulley that descended over the heads of trick or treaters.
3rd best: we bought yards of the spider web stuff, then tacked it around the entrance to the house. It took a real stalwart of a 5-year-old to battle their way through the web to get a piece of candy. Now only if we had a GIANT spider to enhance the effect.
4th best: the doctors at Cook County Hospital who would draw spiders on the wall next to alcoholics going through withdrawal . . .
My sons fave Holiday is Halloween too, which didn’t go over well with all the fundies I know.
The last 2 years we have been living in a different suburb than we did for 4+ years.
Theres hardly any kids out here.
So, we are bussing it to our former suburb, where theres tons on one street, almost like a street party.
Hopefully, it’ll be warm out, thats important to me.
I’m still going as Ozzy, I think, my son wanted to go as one of his dogs, but he’s been practicing his “SHAR-ON!” so maybe he’ll wannna be Oz.
I could then go as kelly, all I’ll need is pink hairspray.
Afterwards, we stop at a local chinese food place and get pork fried rice.
Its a tradition.
I’m doing two pretty generic costumes this year. A friend is making me a purple cape to go with a purple shirt and black jeans plus some decent stick-on fangs and a really cool costume brooch as a clasp for the cloak to be your basic stylish vampire. I’m either going to let my nails grow out a bit and have them done or use some press-ons that I’ve spray painted a metallic purple. I need to find a matching mask. That’s my going out costume. For work, my same friend is making me a cheerleader-type skirt. I’m going to wear that with a tight purple t-shirt and big stompy boots and be a pissed off butch fairy princess complete with wings, wand and tiara. I’m thinking that some people at work will literally scream and flee. We were talking yesterday about setting up a haunted house in our department and I’m really going to push to follow through on it.
I’m doing two pretty generic costumes this year. A friend is making me a purple cape to go with a purple shirt and black jeans plus some decent stick-on fangs and a really cool costume brooch as a clasp for the cloak to be your basic stylish vampire. I’m either going to let my nails grow out a bit and have them done or use some press-ons that I’ve spray painted a metallic purple. I need to find a matching mask. That’s my going out costume. For work, my same friend is making me a cheerleader-type skirt. I’m going to wear that with a tight purple t-shirt and big stompy boots and be a pissed off butch fairy princess complete with wings, wand and tiara. I’m thinking that some people at work will literally scream and flee. We were talking yesterday about setting up a haunted house in our department and I’m really going to push to follow through on it.
Well, sure you are loved, 'nilla. Aren’t ya?
No tutu, Otto?